Category: Articles
Article
Cop Tracing
Jonathan Abel, Associate Professor, University of California, Hastings College of the Law
What happens to an officer’s old cases when that officer is exposed as corrupt? Often, the answer is nothing. This Article calls for “cop tracing”: an effort to identify and investigate the past cases handled by dishonest cops. The Article first describes the existing action and inaction with respect to such tracing. Next, it examines…
Aug 2022
Article
Voter Data, Democratic Inequality, and the Risk of Political Violence
Bertrall L. Ross II, Justice Thurgood Marshall Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Virginia & Douglas M. Spencer, Associate Professor of Law, University of Colorado, Boulder
Campaigns’ increasing reliance on data-driven canvassing has coincided with a disquieting trend in American politics: a stark gap in voter turnout between the rich and poor. Turnout among the poor has remained low in modern elections despite legal changes that have dramatically decreased the cost of voting. In this Article, we present evidence that the…
Aug 2022
Article
Free Exercise Partisanship
Zalman Rothschild, Nonresident fellow at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center; Nonresident fellow at the University of Lucerne; Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. J.D., magna cum laude, Harvard Law School; Ph.D., New York University; M.A., Yeshiva University.
This Article presents new data demonstrating that, in contrast to earlier periods, recent judicial decision-making in free exercise cases tracks political affiliation to a significant degree. The trend toward increased free exercise partisanship is starkly manifested by free exercise cases borne out of the COVID-19 pandemic: a survey of federal court decisions pertaining to free…
Aug 2022
Article
Amazon as a Seller of Marketplace Goods Under Article 2
Tanya J. Monestier, Professor of Law, University at Buffalo School of Law
You have probably purchased goods on Amazon. Did you know that if the goods you purchased on Amazon turn out to be defective and cause serious personal injury, Amazon is probably not liable for them? Did you know that even though you placed an order on Amazon, gave payment to Amazon, and received the goods…
Jun 2022
Article
Medication Abortion Exceptionalism
Greer Donley, Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School
Though state laws dominate the abortion debate, there is a federal abortion policy that significantly curtails access to early abortion in all fifty states. The policy, known as a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS), limits the distribution of mifepristone, the only drug approved to terminate a pregnancy so long as it is within the…
Jun 2022
Article
Unequal Investment: A Regulatory Case Study
Emily Winston, Assistant Professor, University of South Carolina School of Law
Growing economic inequality in the United States has reduced social mobility, placing financial security farther out of reach for a growing number of Americans. During the COVID19 pandemic, U.S. stock prices have grown simultaneously with unemployment and food insecurity, highlighting the fact that prosperity is unequally distributed in the U.S. economy. Many Americans do not…
Jun 2022
Article
Jurisdictional Elements and the Jury
G. Alexander Nunn, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Arkansas School of Law
Do jurisdictional elements in criminal statutes actually matter? Of course, formally, the answer is obvious; jurisdictional elements are of paramount importance. In fact, they often serve as the entire justifying basis for a federal (rather than state) criminal prosecution. But beyond mere technicalities, do jurisdictional elements actually make a difference in a jury deliberation room?…
Apr 2022
Article
Systematically Important Platforms
Caleb N. Griffin, Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas School of Law
Regulating Big Tech is now a matter of intense public debate. We ask how well Big Tech companies fulfill their role as gatekeepers of the public square. We ponder whether their dominant market positions merit an antitrust response. We assess their culpability and complicity in spreading online misinformation and hate. However, in the many normative…
Apr 2022
Article
Deregulated Redistricting
Travis Crum, Associate Professor of Law, Washington University in St. Louis
From the civil rights movement through the Obama administration, each successive redistricting cycle involved ever greater regulation of the mapmaking process. But in the past decade, the Supreme Court has rewritten the ground rules for redistricting. For the first time in fifty years, Southern States will redistrict free of the pre clearance process that long…
Apr 2022
Article
Is Unpublished Unequal? An Empirical Examination of the 87% Nonpublication Rate in Federal Appeals
Rachel Brown, Jade Ford, Sahrula Kubie, Katrin Marquez, Bennett Ostdiek & Abbe R. Gluck, Yale Law School Class of 2020
Federal judges resolved more than eighty-seven percent of appeals through unpublished opinions over the past five years. These dispositions are non-precedential and typically contain abbreviated reasoning. Such high rates of nonpublication may be difficult to reconcile with the core values of the federal judiciary—values grounded in precedent, reason-giving, and equal treatment. After intense attention to…
Apr 2022
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